Friday, October 8, 2010

1877 E. Howard Tower Clock

Last week I spotted this clockwork wonder in the lobby of the Henry County courthouse in Kentucky. It was the original courthouse tower clock, which had been abandoned when it ceased to work many years ago, but then some enterprising soul rescued it from whatever guano-encrusted shed in which it had been stored, and coaxed it like Frankenstein's Monster back into renewed life.

The clock was manufactured in 1877 by a Boston, Massachusetts company specifically for the Henry County courthouse's original incarnation. I was thrilled to discover such a Steampunky find out in the glory lands of rural Kentucky, but the locals seem jaded about it, and found it a source of considerable mirth that I was taking pictures of it like a foreign tourist.